Momentary vs. Durable Survival

International Peace Coalition Meeting
December 20, 2024, 11am ET
On Zoom

Join us with Prof. Steve Starr, Vanessa Beeley, and others for the discussion.

Please register below for the Zoom link

Gen. (ret.) Keith Kellogg, President-elect Donald Trump’s envoy on Ukraine peace negotiations, responded quickly to the Dec. 17 assassination of Russian Gen.-Lt. Igor Kirillov by Ukrainian secret services, denouncing the terror hit in Moscow as "not a smart thing to do… There are rules of engagement, and there are certain things that you just don’t do."

Moscow will take due note of Kellogg’s comments, which are a useful effort by the Trump camp to try to douse the flames on this latest strategic provocation against Russia, all of which are designed—like the last 30 days’ string of ATACMS long-range missile attacks on Russia—to try to lock in place a head-on collision, even a nuclear one, between the U.S. and NATO on the one side, and Russia and China on the other—{before} Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20, 2025. Recent statements at CSIS in Washington by STRATCOM’s Director of Plans and Policy, Adm. Thomas Buchanan, point in exactly that direction.

Trump himself strongly denounced the ATACMS provocations, both in a Time magazine interview published Dec. 12 and then again in a Dec. 16 Mar-a-Lago press conference. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated his appreciation of the former. And Russian media such as RT gave wide coverage to the latter, featuring a headline that read: "‘Stupid’ of Biden to allow long-range strikes on Russia—Trump," with the kicker "The US president-elect has said that he may reverse the decision once he takes office next month."

But then again on Dec. 18, Ukraine reportedly launched yet another ATACMS strike, targeting a rocket fuel plant and an airfield in Rostov. Few further details are available at this writing.

It is evident that the underlying problem overflows the short-term responses to date. When faced with the strategic pyromaniacs running the Biden administration, and who are moving in on the incoming Trump administration to try to contain and control it, simply dousing the flames of each new fire that is set is, eventually, a losing proposition.

To wit: the nation of Syria is now being carved up by Israeli, American, Turkish and other forces, all under the guiding hand of London’s Bernard Lewis Plan for unleashing geopolitical havoc on Russia’s southern flank. Will Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu, who just seized Mt. Hebron and is moving further into Syrian territory, be convinced that this is the propitious moment he has been waiting for to finally move against Iran’s nuclear program? And might he use Israel’s nuclear weapons in such an attack?

To move beyond addressing the momentary survival of mankind over the coming 30 days, to guaranteeing our durable survival as the unique, creative species that we are, requires very basic changes. The Schiller Institute’s just-released pamphlet "Development Drive Means Billions of New Jobs, No Refugees, No War" presents the essentials of the urgently needed policy of U.S. cooperation with China, Russia and the BRICS, and it deserves the widest possibly circulation and deliberation, both nationally and internationally. The same holds for the proceedings of the extraordinary Dec. 7-8 Schiller Institute conference organized by Helga Zepp-LaRouche.

Join the International Peace Coalition this Friday at 11am ET with Prof. Steve Starr, Vanessa Beeley, and others for the discussion.